Salute Our Military Children

Posted April 30, 2013

By: Molly Blake of Blue Star Families

April is the Month of the Military Child. The whole month is dedicated to our kids and it’s just about over. Now I’m on my computer a lot. Pretty much all day. I work from home and plink away on my MAC editing the Blue Star Families blog, updating our website, talking social media strategy the fabulous young gal who always (innocently I might add) manages to make me feel totally and completely obsolete because I don’t know what tumblr is, for instance.

I’m also on my phone a lot. I check email and scroll through twitter. I’m pretty dialed in. And while much of the headlines of late have to do with the Boston bombing and the tragic fire in Texas that claimed the lives of far too many first-responders, I did read a few stories about how wounded veterans were passing along advice to the people injured in Boston. And I thought to myself – I wonder if our military kids should do the same.

When tragedy strikes, our instinct is to hold our heads up high, stick out our chins and refuse to go quietly into the night. Maybe this time, we should look down at our kids and see what they have to say.

Wounded Vets now number in the hundreds of thousands. Untold more members of our armed forces face exhausting emotional battles, PTS, and psychological injures. My husband went to war and deployed and deployed but he always came home in tact and without, thankfully, the emotional and physical scars that plague some. Therefore I don’t know too much about what it’s like to send someone away and later, receive a version of that person in return. But there are military spouses out there who do.

And military kids, sadly, know about injuries too. Soldiers and Marines with long jagged scars or the now familiar faces of burn victims walk among our Army and Marine families. Military children have friends with daddies in heaven.

If we were in Boston, my daughter would gladly hold the hand of a frightened girl whose parent was injured. She would tell her to hope and pray and stay strong. She would say, in her small, soft voice, ‘you will get through this.’ She would say that it’s okay to be scared. And she would remind her new friend that there are still people who rush to help; first responders and Marines and Soldiers. There are still people who every single day raise their hands to serve and help.

Resolve is a tough lesson to learn- especially for kids. It’s clear our military kids have it and for that, we should salute them!